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Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys
Chapter Four, Benton's History of Herkimer County
CHAPTER IV. 1722 to 1772.
First settlement at the German Flats-License to Purchase of Indians-Some notice of the Patent-Name of Patentees-Period of Rest-Fort at Oswego built in 1726-Defenses near Rome-Frontier Posts destroyed by the French in 1756-Palatine Settlement destroyed in 1757-M. De Belletre's account of it-Not credited by one of his Countrymen-Gov. De Laney-Fort Harenieger-Alleged Apathy of the Inhabitants-Reasons for Doubting-Indian Statements-Deputy Superintendent-Indian Fidelity Questioned-Escape of the Minister-Another Attack in 1758-Conduct of Teamsters and the Rangers-Woman Scalped-Quiet Restored by the Capture of Fort Frontenau in 1758 and Quebec in 1759-Colonial Wars-Commerce Restricted-Complaints of Colonists-Lord Camden-Mr. Pitt-Sir William Johnson-Attachment of the Palatines to the Cause of the Colonists.
German Flats enjoyed nearly thirty-five years of rest, and in that time had made, rapid progress in clearing their farms, building houses and barns raising stock and establishing defenses against attack from any hostile quarter. Governor Burnet had in 1726, although violently opposed by the governor-general of Canada, erected a fort at the mouth of the Oswego river, the good will of the Iroquois had been secured in its defense, and the fur trade with the Indians within the province, which had been chiefly engrossed by the french of Canada, was principally secured to the English. Besides the protection afforded by the fort at Oswego, there were some defenses at or near the present village of Rome; and although other frontier portions of the colony had been afflicted with the scourge of barbarous and exterminating war, these Palatines had enjoyed a long period of repose. In 1756, the English fort at Oswego was captured, and the small fortifications on Wood creek and the upper Mohawk were taken and demolished by the french; and on the 12th of November, 1757, an expedition under the command of M. de Belletre, composed of about three hundred marines, Canadians and Indians, which had traversed the wilderness by the way of Black river, attacked and destroyed the Palatine settlements on the north side of the Mohawk River at or near the present village of Herkimer. A portion of the French narrative of this expedition, with all its exaggerations and expletives, is given verbatim as a specimen of colonial bragging and French grandiloquence of that day:
"On the 11th November, at three o'clock in the afternoon, M. de Belletre, preceded as was his custom by scouts, crossed the river Corlaer [Mohawk] with his detachment, partly swimming, partly in water up to the neck. He encamped at nightfall in the woods a league and a half from the first of the five forts that covered the Palatine settlements.
"The 12th at three o'clock in the morning, he gave his detachment the order of march and attack so as to surround the said five forts and the entire Palatine village, consisting of sixty houses.
"Though M. De Belletre knew that the English got notice the day preceding, yet that the courage of the Indians may not receive the least check, and to show them that he would not really expose them, he liberated an Indian of the Five Nations, whom he had until then detained under suspicion. But this savage could not injure M. deBelletre, because he commenced at the same time to attack the five forts and the Palatines' houses.
"At sight of the first fort he decided to take it by assault. The enemy kept up a most active fire of musketry, but the intrepidity with which M. do Belletre, with all the officers and Canadians of his detachment advanced, coupled with the war whoop of the Indians, terrified the English to the degree that the mayor of the village of the Palatines, who commanded the said fort, opened the door, and asked for quarters.
"M. De Belletre lost no time in repairing to the second, the third, the fourth and fifth, which were no less intimidated than the first, by his intrepidity and the cries of the Indians. They all surrendered at discretion, and were entirely burnt.
"During this time a party of Canadians and Indians ravaged and burnt the sixty houses of the Palatines, their barns and other building, as well as the water mill.
"In all these expeditions about forty English perished-killed or drowned. The number of prisoners is nearly one hundred and fifty men, women and children, among whom is the mayor of the village, the surgeon and some militia officers. We had not a man killed; but M. de Lorimer, officer, was wounded in the right side by a ball, and three or four savages slightly.
'The damage inflicted on the enemy is estimated according to the representations of the English themselves to wit:-int to the reentations of the English themselves, to wit:
"In grain, of all sorts, a much larger quantity than the island of Montreal has produced in years of abundance. The same of hogs; 3000 horned cattle; 3000 sheep. All these articles were to be sent in a few days to Corlaer [Schenectady]; 1500 horses, 300 of which were taken by the Indians, and the greater number consumed for the support of be detachment.
"The property in furniture, wearing apparel, merchandise and liquor, might form a capital of 1,500,000 livres [$277,500]. The mayor of the village alone has lost 400,000 [$74,000]. The French and Indians have acquired as rich a booty as they could carry off. They have in specie more than 100,000 livres [$18,500]. One Indian alone has as much as 30,000 [45,500]. There was likewise plundered a quantity of wampum, silver bracelets, &c., scarlet cloth and other merchandise, which would form a capital of 80,000 more. All this damage could not be done short of forty eight hours. M de Belletre made provision to be always able to resist the enemy, who, as has been observed, were to the number of 350 men in the said Fort Kouari [Herkimer], about a quarter of a league from the field of battle."
This is a most extraordinary narrative of a most barbarous transaction, and is so characterized by one of M. de Belletre's own countryman, Mr. Daine, in his report to the French minister, in which he says the injury inflicted "in horned cattle, sheep and horses has been greatly exaggerated in the relation of M. DeBelletre's expedition. It must be diminished by at least at good half. It is still more exaggerated in regard to furniture, wearing apparel, merchandise and liquors, which are carried up to fifteen hundred thousand livres, as well as the loss of the Palatine village in Indian corn." And Gov. De Lancy, in mentioning the destruction of "a valuable settlement on the north side of the Mohawk's river, opposite to Fort Hareninger, called the German Flats," says "the loss is estimated at twenty thousand pounds this money," fifty thousand dollars, a pretty large discrepancy from that given by the valorous Frenchman, who seemed somewhat desirous that his achievement should begin to compare with the martial deeds of his illustrious countryman, Turrene, when he ravaged the German Palatinate about one hundred years before.
The confidence inspired by a long exemption from hostile visits, proved in this case extremely unfortunate. It is asserted that these people were informed the day before, by friendly Indians, of the contemplated attack of the French and Indians, but being extremely incredulous, they gave no heed to these admonitions. Their settlement was in sight of a fort on the south side of the river, garrisoned by three hundred and fifty men; so says thee French account, and it must be taken at considerable discount. But if this was true in all its parts, these people had some grounds to suppose, if they were attacked, that they would be aided by an armed force so near at hand in repelling the assault; their retirement to the fort with their families and effects could or not have preserved their houses and crops from destruction, Militia forces from Albany had been ordered the year before to repair to the German Flats; and the fort mentioned in the French account and by Gov. De Lancy is described as a "stockaded work around the church and blockhouse, with a ditch and a parapet palisaded, thrown up by Sir William Johnson a year ago [in 1756]" upon an alarm then given."
But there is another witness who must speak in relation to this sad affair. Sir William Johnson having been informed that the Indians had not notified the Palatines of the enemy's approach until the morning the attack was made, sent his deputy agent and Indian interpreter, to inquire of the Oneida and Tuscarora Indians, several of whom he was told were assembled at the German Flats, respecting this affair, and ask them to explain why they had not given more timely notice of the designs and approach of the enemy.
The deputy agent, Mr. Croghan, did not arrive at the scene of desolation until the Indians had left for home; he sent for them to return; the narrative then proceeds:
"The aforesaid Indians returned, and on the 30th November [1757] at Fort Harkeman, Conaghquieson, chief Oneida sachem, made the following speech to Mr. Croghan, having first called in one Rudolph Shumaker, Hanjost Harkenam and several other Germans, who understood the Indian language, and desired them to sit down and hear what be was going to say. Conaghquieson then proceeded and said:
Brother: I can't help telling you that we were very much surprised to hear that our brethren, the English, suspect and charge us with not giving them timely notice of the designs of the French, as it is well known we have not neglected to give them every piece of intelligence that came to our knowledge.
Brother: About fifteen days before the affair happened, we sent the Germans word that some Swegatchi Indians told us the French were determined to destroy the German Flats, and desired them to be on their guard. About six days after, that we had further account from the Swegatchi, that the French were preparing to march.
"I then came down to the German flats, and in a meeting with the Germans, told them what we had heard, and desired them to collect themselves together in a body at their fort, and secure their women, children and effects, and make the best defense they could; and at the same time told them to write what I had said to our brother Warraghiyagey [meaning Sir William Johnson. The Palatines sent this intelligence.]. But they paid not the least regard to what, I told them, and laughed at me, saying they did not value the enemy. Upon this I returned home sent one of our people to lake [meaning the Oneida lake] to find out whether the enemy were coming or not; and after he had sent word to the castle at the take, that they were there, and told them what they were going to do; but charged them not to let us at the upper castle know anything of their design. As soon as the man I sent there heard this, he came on to us with the account that night, and as soon as we received it we sent a belt of wampum to confirm the truth thereof, to the flats, which came here the day before the enemy made their attack; but the people would not give credit to the account even then, or they might have saved their lives. This is the truth, and those Germans here know it to be so.
"The aforesaid Germans did acknowledge it to be so, and that they had such intelligence. "George Croghan."
In testing historical facts, all the circumstances of the relations given must be examined with care, the position of the narrators known, and all probabilities nicely and properly balanced. Hitherto these people, in their intercourses with the colonial officials of the crown, had given no each evidence of inanition and stolidity as is here charged upon them. They did not lack shrewdness and a good degree of intelligence in selecting their lands. This is evident to any one who will take the trouble to examine into it. They had every motive, the preservation of life, and the protection of property, to induce then, to be cautious and guarded in all their actions: they would not be likely in one short year to have forgotten that all the frontier posts between them and their habitual foes bad been captured, and that an invasion of their own homes bad been feared.
De Lancy knew nothing of the facts stated, bearing upon this particular ,object, except what be derived from reports or rumors, and M. de Belletre's narrative is a mere bagatelle, discredited by one of his own countrymen; besides, how could he know the English had notice of his coming the day preceding, except from rumor? The statements of the narrative which has been partly transcribed, present the gravest subject of reflection, touching the matter to be disposed of. Sir William Johnson had, at this time, been several years superintendent of Indian affairs under the crown, possessing great shrewdness, much talent and an untiring perseverance in the discharge of his duties; his intercourse with the Indians, was marked with uncommon sagacity, and to carry into effect, fully, the policy of his government in respect to the Indians, appeared to be the end and aim of all his actions. He had already achieved a standing with the home government, that could not be easily assailed, and won for himself a title, to his posterity a fortune. His influence over and control of the native Indians within his superintendency, was very great, and it seemed their brother Warraghiyagey had only to express a desire, to have it fulfilled, so far as it depended on their agency. They could at forfeit his confidence in them with impunity; and they well know that every approach of the enemy, or even rumor of it, through their country, towards the English settlements, must in accordance with the conventional relations existing between him and them, be immediately communicated to the parties expected to be assailed. This attack on the Palatine village was sudden, and no doubt unexpected, to Sir William, and whom the news reached him his first thought seems to have been that his Indian outposts bad been negligent of their duty, for he dispatched his deputy and interpreter to the spot to inquire why they had not given more timely notice of the designs and approach of the enemy, he having been informed that no intelligence bad been given by the Indians until the morning the offset, was made. The affair was a very grave one, and might create some embarrassments.
The blame of permitting this murderous assault, without making any preparation to meet it, must fall upon Sir William and his subagents, the Indians, or the German settlers, and it is not very difficult to see what would be the result of the inquiry, when the judge and witness were interested parties, and it must be more agreeable to the subagent to find the Indians blameless, than chargeable with a neglect that must in some degree reflect discredit upon the chief Superintendent of Indian affairs. The document, partly copied, was not found in the archives of the state, either here or in England, nor among Sir William's papers and there is no evidence found, except the paper itself, that the Palatines knew any thing of its contents or were present on the occasion; and what is quite remarkable, no paper has been seen or found wherein Sir William alludes to this invasion, but he was at the German Flats in 1756, in April, 1757, and in 1758. The fact is not improbable that the deputy agent was better pleased to find the fault of being unprepared attributable to the settles, rather than the Indians, for then there could be no cause for censure, however remote, against the Indian superintendency. The reader has all the facts within the reach of the author, and must form such conclusions as may seem just.
These people were then seated on a fertile a spot as any in the state, had good buildings on their farms, and were generally rich. Their buildings and crops were destroyed by fire, and their horses, cattle, sheep and hogs were many of them killed. Some of the people were slain by the marauders and nearly one hundred carried into captivity. The German minister and a majority of the inhabitants who followed him, saved themselves by going to the fort on the south side of the river, on the morning of the attack. The enemy burned a gristmill, probably on what is now called Staring's creek, and a sawmill within a few miles of the settlement. There were about twenty houses between Fort Kouari [Herkimer] and Fall Hill or Little Falls, on the south side of the river at this time, and eight on the north side, which were abandoned for a time when the settlement at Herkimer was destroyed.
In the following spring, April 30th, 1758, a large party of Indians and a small number of French attacked the Palatine settlement on the south side of the river, near the fort. About thirty of the inhabitants were killed, and one officer, Lieut. Hair of the rangers, was wounded slightly in the breast. The enemy were rather roughly treated when they came in contact with the rangers, having had about fifteen of their number killed and wounded. Captain Herchamer commended the fort at this time, and on the first intimation of danger, collected within the fort all the inhabitants he could gather, before the attack was made upon the settlements, but there were several families who had fled from Henderson's purchase that spring, and with them two Indian traders by the name of Clock, and several teamsters, taking baggage to the fort, who were not notified in time, or for some other cause, did not retire to the fort before the enemy came upon them, rushed into the houses, killing ad scalping all they could find. The teamsters being together in one of the houses attacked, ran up stairs, and made a brave defense until the Indians were driven away by the rangers; one of them, however, John Ehel, hearing that the Indians threaten to set fire to the house they were in, became frightened, jumped out of the chamber window and was killed. A woman came into the fort the next morning, who had been scalped, her nose nearly cut off, and wounded in her breast and side; and she was even then, in that mutilated condition, supposed likely to recover. She related all that happened to her until scalped, and said there were Onondaga Indians with the enemy. One or two facts are worthy of special notice. The account given of this second disaster to the Palatine, states that Capt. Herkimer or Herchamer, was notified by an Oneida Indian, at 12 o'clock, that the Indians and French were near the fort and would come down an the settlements that day, and at four o'clock the attack was made, giving only four hours to gather in the inhabitants from the different localities in the neighborhood of the fort, and some of the houses were some distance from it. Now, why was not a more timely notice given, and why were any Onondaga Indians found with the enemy making war upon this frontier settlement?
At this period of the history of the Mohawk valley, there were nearly five hundred houses between the East Canada creek and Sir William Johnson's residence near Amsterdam, on both sides of the river, and the road or path usually traveled from Utica as far down as the East Canada creek was on the south side of the river. There was no wagon or carriage track between the two creeks at that early day.
The capture of Fort Frontennac, Kingston, C. W., by the English in 1758, and the surrender of Quebec and Fort Niagara in the following year, with a general pacification with the Indian tribes, again secured to the inhabitants of the German Flats the blessings of peace. Their surviving friends returned from captivity, and with cheerfulness and hope rebuilt their homes, replenished their stocks and prepared their fields for seed time, with a full anticipation of once more reaping the plenteous harvest in quiet.
The gloom of the past now began to fade in the brightening prospects of the future, with this little bard of frontier pilgrims, whose more than fifty years of wanderings, since they left their fatherland, had not been unattended by toils, privations, sicknesses devastations and deaths. And such deaths too as were inflicted on their number! Humanity, bowing in reverent submission, weeps in agony at the recital, and asks when retributive justice will be visited upon the perpetrators of such deeds; and when and how these tribulations shall have an end.
The repose and tranquility that succeeded the conquest of Canada by the English, and the general Indian pacification before alluded to, was only the calm that precedes the earthquake. In 1763, Nova, Scotia, Canada, Cape Breton and other dependencies were ceded by France to the British crown, and the two Floridas by Spain, and thus Great Britain became mistress of the whole North American continent; a territory equal in extent to that of several European kingdoms. From 1689 to 1760, a period of seventy-one years, the colonies had been involved in four wars, which lasted in all, twenty-seven years, but their population had increased from two hundred thousand to nearly three millions, Agriculture had steadily advanced, and trade and commerce had greatly increased but in arts and manufactures little progress was made, the introduction of them being opposed by the mother country. Hitherto the commercial enterprise of the colonists had encountered but few checks from the home government, and a direct trade with several of the Spanish and French colonies had been permitted, although contrary to the letter of the British navigation law, This trade was highly beneficial to the colonists, as it enabled them to exchange their products for gold and silver and other valuable commodities, whereby they were enabled to make their remittances in payment of British manufactures, which their necessities compelled them to have, and could not be supplied from any other country. Shortly after the treaty of Paris in 1763, the spirit with which the prosecuted their commercial affairs, alarmed the mercantile and shipping interests in the mother country, upon whose representations the government imposed restrictions that annihilated this trade, to the serious injury of the northern colonies. Although some modification of former restrictions subsequently took place, they were coupled with regulations and the exaction of duties to raise a revenue in America, which the colonists considered dangerous innovations. The people of the colonies were not relieved and their fears were greatly excited in consequence of the novel principles attempted to be engrafted upon the British constitution by the enactment of laws of this description. The British national debt had become enormous for that period, and it was found necessary to provide means for diminishing the burden and the idea of raising a substantial revenue in the colonies from taxes imposed by parliament was conceived, and laws to carry it into effect were passed. The causes that produced collision with the mother country and eventuated in the independence of the American colonies, can not be minutely traced in a work of this character. The colonies insisted they were member of the British empire and could not be taxed without their consent; that representation and taxation were inseparable; and that this was a fundamental principle of the British constitution.
Lord Camden, in a debate in the house of peers on one of these tax bills, uttered the following emphatic and impressive language: "My position," said he, "is this; I repeat it; I will maintain it to my last hour: Taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature. It is more, it is an eternal law of nature. For, whatever is a man's own, no other man has a right to take from him without his consent, and whoever does it commits robbery." And Mr. Pitt said in the house of commons: "You have no right to tax America. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of our fellow subjects so lost to every sense of virtue, as tamely to give up their liberties, would be fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." These sentiments, touched in language so bold and nervous, were not slow in reaching the ears of a deeply interested audience. The distinguished and liberal British statesmen who uttered them, did not, perhaps, imagine they were speeding a ball that was so soon to strike from the British crown one of its brightest jewels.
It may at be out of place here to remark, that Sir William Johnson was highly esteemed and no doubt justly, by his neighbors of the lower Mohawk valley, and exercised over many of them an unbounded influence. On his death that esteem and regard was transferred to his family, who did not fail to exert their influence among their friends and dependants, in all matters relating to the approaching conflict. Quite a number of the people then living at and near Johnstown, Fort Hunter and other parts of Tryon county, left it with, Sir John Johnson and Guy Johnson, and went to Canada; the descendants of some of them may now, be found settled on the shores of Lake Ontario, between Niagara and Burlington Heights, Hamilton; and others in different parts of Upper Canada. These were followed by others, disaffected, who left during the revolutionary war.
The Palatines at the German Flats, were seated at some distance from Sir William, and had comparatively but little intercourse with him. They know him as an officer of the government, and not as a neighbor and friend. They had but few opportunities of intercourse with his family, and consequently were not influenced by them in regard to the difficulties between the colonies and the mother country.
If any efforts were made to detach them from their allegiance to the country, those efforts were not attended with any great success, as only a very few of them are known, to have abandoned their homes and followed the fortunes of the Johnson family. They may have had abundant reasons for doubting the disinterestedness of any proffers that were made to them from that quarter, and they chose not to put any further faith in promises which had to their grief and sorrow been so often broken. They had not in seventeen years forgotten the scenes of November, 1757, and April, 1758, when they were left an unprotected and exposed frontier, subject to attack by an enemy whose trophy was the human scalp, and the record of whose warlike achievements was found in the smouldering ruins of destroyed hamlets, slaughtered cattle, and captive women and children; when, if any males were spared, these were preserved to grace the triumph of victory, by running the gauntlet between two lines of infuriated demons whose privilege and duty it was to inflict torments, and whose greatest solace consisted in viewing the agonies of the tortured victim,
But these people had other and loftier motives to guide their actions and control them in the course they should pursue in the contest, where even brother was to strive with deadly weapons against brother, and the son with the father; a most unnatural conflict , provoked by kingly power. Tradition, if they possessed no other means of information, had unfolded to them all the miseries of serfdom, a concomitant of regal power and the absolute rule of one man. They saw and felt the justice of the sentiment, that man ought not to be burdened without his consent; but exposed as they were, and suffer as they well knew they must, from the blows that would be dealt upon them by their old foes, soon to be leagued with former friends, they embraced with zeal, and with a resolution not to be shaken, the cause of the colonies against the mother country, and held out firmly to the end; thereby proving themselves unfit "instruments to make slaves of the rest" of their fellow subjects.
This is plain, unembellished historic truth, respecting the inhabitants of the country now embraced within the bounds of the county, and of which the descendants of the Palatines composed, by far, the greatest number.
From the close of the French war to the stirring events that shortly preceded the commencement of the revolutionary contest, neither history nor oral tradition has given us any marked or striking incidents worthy of notice. Until 1772, Albany county extended westward without any defined limits when Tryon county was erected, and the administration of justice most have been characterized by a patriarchal simplicity, often silenced, no doubt, by military rule. The white settlements were mostly confined to the Mohawk valley and its vicinity, although some families were found remote from the principal settlements along the river.
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